MensNewsDailey Column 2

Last April 2, a gang of young black thugs entertained themselves by cruising the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia, looking for white students to attack with clubs and other instruments of mayhem. After injuring several students and putting two in the hospital, they were apprehended by police. The response of the city and UVA community was an outpouring of sympathy for the “victims”- that is, the thugs who carried out the attacks. Moreover, several bake sales were held to raise funds to assure that these “victims” were properly represented in court!\

Obviously, some kind of group hysteria or madness is afoot here. Fortunately, the social sciences are finally getting a grip on the problem. In fact, the recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) lists a new disorder called Politically Correct Psychosis or PCP. It comes in several varieties including gay, lesbian, and bisexual PCP, manic bean-counting PCP, gender obsession PCP, and race-induced PCP (by far the most serious disorder).

PCP is typically seen in highly intelligent, highly educated, and upper SES Caucasian-American populations, and the disorder is especially common in the states of New York, Florida, and California. People in the heartland seem relatively immune to serious and chronic instances of PCP. The disorder is heavily concentrated in university settings, in TV and print newsrooms, in the Hollywood elite, in every nook and cranny of television, and runs rampant among the intellectual classes. Indeed, the disorder is so common in these sheltered classes that it is considered a “normal” mode of expression. The disorder strikes both sexes, but women exhibit more severe symptoms due to their obsession with “hurt feelings”- which, of course, is the heart of political correctness. Not surprisingly, most sufferers are liberal democrats, but an occasional republican is noted. However, there is suspicion that the republican cases are, in fact, instances of symptom feigning or malingering for political effect. What are the symptoms of politically correct psychosis? The most debilitating symptom is sudden and cataclysmic loss of higher intellectual functions including rationality, logic, cause-effect reasoning, and higher moral sensibility. For example, an African-American student can walk up to a Caucasian-American professor and simply say “slavery” and PCP will occur like magic. The professor’s eyes will become glazed, tremors may occur, and his or her IQ may drop as much as 50 points. The professor may retain just enough cognitive ability to engage in rudimentary conversation with the student, but discourse will be laced with non sequiturs like “I’m sorry…I wish I could die” or “Did you know that I was at Woodstock” or worst still “Yes, I will support any and all demands that you wish to make of me, the university, or the entire country.” If the student presses further with questions about the causes of black crime or the validity of IQ testing, the professor may either pass out entirely or go on a meaningless tirade supporting the death penalty for David Duke.

The most mysterious symptom is a catastrophic loss of courage and backbone. While in the PCP state the patient becomes what an erstwhile local politician used to call a “pusillanimous pussyfooter”- that is, naïve, cowardly, and unwilling to make any kind of moral distinction. The technical term for this is “tolerophilia” or pleasure in tolerating everything. Amazingly, tolerophilic patients actually believe that making no moral decision is a superior morality. Of course, the disease has taken over totally at this point. Another symptom is the paranoid delusion that white males are out to destroy and desecrate every thing that America cherishes. Apparently they accomplish this perfidy by inventing, manufacturing, and distributing a wide variety of medical, scientific, artistic, and technological goods that were designed with the expressed purpose of oppressing and thwarting women and minorities. They are the true enemies of America not street thugs of Charlottesville, Osama ben Laden, or the 9-11 terrorists. This delusion is particularly intriguing when the patient is himself a white male.

Acute PCP is generally accompanied by a state of serious mental confusion that features flamboyant double standards and internal contradictions. The most common contradiction is “We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer” and a close runner up is “I am against the death penalty, but I support all forms of abortion on demand.” One way the patient copes with his or her reality vacuum is to take a few concepts such as racism, sexism, homophobia and the like, and then concoct new realities to fit the overall delusional pattern. This compensatory pattern is the only way the patient can cope with the 50+ IQ drop experienced at the outset of the disorder.

Sincerely expressed concerns by African-Americans can almost always set off a PCP reaction in privileged Caucasian-Americans, but other minority group concerns often fail to do so. For example, no systematic pattern of race-induced PCP has been associated with American Indians, Appalachian-Americans, or Asian-Americans. This is a puzzling finding that warrants more research.

Perhaps the most puzzling symptom of all is the privileged Caucasian-American’s tendency to forgive all and absolve all even when grievously victimized himself or herself. However, this is not a mere social oddity, but is, rather, the cardinal symptom of DSM-IV’s newest diagnostic category- politically correct psychosis or PCP. Let us all pray for a cure in the near future.